


Roller Coaster Fatality/ Ghosts in the Snow

by mikeywaypt2



Category: Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Archive warning because of talking about violence and death but it's not super detailed, Everyone other than Awsten is just mentioned, It's really just about his thoughts, based on made in America
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:06:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22784551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeywaypt2/pseuds/mikeywaypt2
Summary: A story in the universe of Made in America by AO3 user kulina, dealing with Awsten's thoughts and the aftermath of the incident.
Kudos: 3





	Roller Coaster Fatality/ Ghosts in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Made In America](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699824) by [parx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parx/pseuds/parx). 



> Hey everybody, just wanted to acknowledge that I have other fics that need updates, but I've been dealing with a lot. I did not proof read, so, this might have errors but there's good reason and I don't know that I will. I spoke to the author on Tumblr and she knowx I wrote this and I'm posting it but I witnessed a shooting tonight and was using this to try to cope and process. So, I apologie if there are errors or typos or anything but that's why and I hope you enjoy it!

Awsten was home. No,better than home, he was with Otto, he was in Otto's bedroom and he was safe and it was warm and everything around him was soft. The point was, there was no reason to be afraid. He wasn't in any kind of danger. There was no reason to be afraid. 

So why was he? Why did he feel like some kind of vicious monster was trying to claw its way out of his chest? Why did the darkness all around him feel so dark and heavy, crushing every ounce of oxygen from his lungs? The fear hurt. It manifested itself as a physical pain.

Awsten had heard about adrenaline before and how it made people do insane things like lift cars off of children, but he'd never heard about the aftermath. Why did no one ever talk about what happened as the chemicals left your body and you were left a normal, fragile person once more? And why did human beings have to be so fucking fragile anyway? If he was invincible, if he was fucking superhuman then he would be okay right now. 

Instead, he was a weird mix of unsettling contradictions. He was tired. OF course he was tired. IT had been such a long day. And yet there was the energy coursing through him. He wanted to give in to the darkness around him. He wanted to curl up, to shut his eyes ( and maybe if he did they wouldn't open again and this would all stop) and let the waves of darkness crash over and around him. Let it drag him to the bottom like a rip tide and settle among the grit of the sand where no one could look at him like if they breathed to hard he would shatter completely. (and maybe he would. Had he already?) But he didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to shut his eyes and let down his guard. And he felt numb. Empty. But at the same time he felt so full of everything, like everythig he saw and felt and the new emotions and the sounds and the smells and everything just kept building. Too much. Too loud. Too fucking big. And it all kept growing and swelling. Every second was more. More, more, more, building and growing to something too sharp and too noisy and too heavy and he didn't know when it would be too big to sit in his chest and his gut and his head and come pouring out in a brutal explosion of everything too strong and too heavy for Awsten fucking Knight. 

Why did no one talk about the aftermath? Everything in the moment felt fuzzy and slow motion, distorted and fake shiny like a twisted, fucked up dream. Somehow everything was becoming sharper as more time passed and he came down from the fucked up high of the adrenaline. The memories kept replaying over and over without a pause, they still weren't a normal pace, but they were faster than everything seemed earlier. There in the moment time had dragged in a way Awsten had never known. Seconds felt like hours and it felt like the entire thing had taken at least a decade. Now it felt more like hours, though he knew it hadn't been that long either. The really jarring part was remembering tiny details he didn't know he'd even noticed. Like what Michael had been wearing and the scent of the freshly cut football field and the warmth and exact places where the sun had hit his face. 

He rolled over for what had to be the billionth time since he'd laid down and he felt his hand brush the spine of a book. He'd put it there. He knew he had, and yet he had forgotten until this moment. He knew exactly which book it was. Still, he picked it up. Let himself feel the weight of it in his hand, traced his fingers over the slightly raised lettering on the spine, squinted at the words on the cover. Lenny. Somehow he felt exactly like Lenny and nothing like him at all, both in the same moment. He knew it was all fake, it was a story made up by a guy who was long dead and Awsten would never have the answers to any of the plethora of questions chasing themselves around his mind relentlessly. And yet he couldn't help but wonder... 

How had Lenny felt in the moments before he died? Did he know what was coming? Was the cold metal of the gun pressed to his head a warning of what was to come, or did he not grasp it? Was he ready? Did he have some degree of acceptance that he was about to die? (Awsten hadn't been ready. He didn't want to die young. But he had accepted it. He had braced himself for the impact that never came.) Did he have a chance to process everything? The click and slide of the latches all clicking into place, pushing the bullet into the chamber? (Awsten hadn't. It had seemed like a faint sound from miles away in the moment. Now it was too fucking loud.) Did he hear the bang when the gun finally went off? Did he have time to think about it, or was he dead before his brain had a chance to catch up? Did Michael? Did it hurt? Would it have hurt if Awsten died? 

He dropped the book back to the mattress with a soft thud, recoiled from it as if the pages had burned him. He curled in on himself, pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eye lids like that would somehow stop the tears that were threatening to form again. He wanted to find comfort in the words, to settle into fantasy and a time and place that were light years away from where he was now. But it didn't feel right. He wished Mr. W was here. He wanted to hear the teacher's soothing voice reading to him, reading literally anything to him, somehow calming him while making the words feel more real and concrete. He could read the fucking phone book and make it come to life, drag Awsten out of his head by rattling off names and numbers until none of this felt real or present or pressing anymore. 

Except he wasn't here. Except it was the middle of the fucking night and Awsten was alone aside from his thoughts and Otto snoring softly from the bottom bunk. 

He shut his eyes tighter, dragged the blankets up higher and shoved his face into the pillow as the first sob clawed its way out of his throat and the tears splashed rapidly off of his lashes and down onto his cheeks. He wished he had died. The realization hit him hard, heavy, and suddenly and he could feel exhaustion settle in as he realized he didn't even want to fight it. He should want to feel okay, but he didn't. Maybe he never would again.


End file.
